Take the Maelstrom, for example. This basic assault rifle appears early in the game. The standard variant of this gun leaves much to be desired. Even fully modified, it’s underpowered and lethargic.

However, if you encounter a legendary variant, it’s a different matter. These variants include attributes that give the player a special edge in battle.

We’ll run through what you need to know about legendary weapons in Starfield and how to increase the chances you’ll get one.

Legendary weapons are worth picking up

Legendary weapons in Starfield look like their basic versions, except they come with differently-colored names and handy perks.

Take the Titanium attribute, for example, which makes the gun incredibly light — giving you extra room for crafting resources and looted objects. Or the Shattering perk, which effortlessly breaks through NPC armor as though it’s made of tinfoil.

Another handy perk is Exterminator, which gives the gun a damage boost when fighting alien creatures. This proves especially helpful as you start surveying planets (a handy source of income).

The most habitable locations often have aggressive fauna that regularly attack in packs. Without the right firepower, it’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed.

In addition to encountering legendary guns, you’ll regularly stumble upon souped-up helmets, backpacks, and spacesuits. These similarly include attributes that help during exploration and combat.

Chameleon, for example, makes the wearer invisible when standing still. This is especially useful when lockpicking or performing a steal attack.

Equally useful is Mechanized, which increases your carry capacity. And with the Liquid Cooled perk, you’ll take less thermal damage.

Legendary items: A quick explainer

Legendary items come in three categories: Blue, Purple, and Gold.

• Blue legendary items have one effect and are also the most abundant. Even when playing on the lowest difficulties, you’ll find ‘blue’ gear in closets and on the bodies of fallen NPCs.
• Purple legendary items–have two legendary effects and are slightly less common than blue items.
• Gold legendary items–These items are the rarest of them all and have three legendary effects. As you’d expect, you’ll typically find them on the bodies of the most challenging enemies.

As I hinted earlier, Starfield is more likely to spawn legendary enemies (and, thus, legendary gear) when played on higher levels.

Of course, these spawns are totally randomized. While your odds are higher when played on Very Hard, Starfield makes no guarantees.

There’s a trick for more Starfield legendary drops

But what if you’re a casual Starfield player (or an FPS novice) and you don’t want to play on the highest difficulty? Well, there’s a handy trick worth knowing, which I learned courtesy of the Starfield Subreddit.

A trick, I add, that will probably be patched out of existence in the coming weeks. So pay attention.

• Before you enter a new location with enemy NPCs, make sure your difficulty level is set to Very Hard.
• Once you’ve entered the building (or cave. Or space station. Whatever), crank the difficulty down to your preferred level.

It’s as easy as that. You’ll get the benefits of better armor and weapons, but without the hassle of repeatedly dying. We tested this trick on the Xbox version, although there’s no reason why it shouldn’t also work on PC.

One thing to note: Legendary spawns are totally random. The item you’ll receive depends on how lucky you are.

And so, if you don’t mind grinding until you get the perfect gun or helmet, consider quicksaving before you enter the location. This gives you the option of trying again.

You’ll likely want to do that because some perks are better than others. Titanium, for example, is incredibly useful. Starfield doesn’t give players much carry capacity — even as you advance through the levels.

By contrast, the Space Adept perk is fairly pointless. It gives the weapon a boost when fighting in space (like when boarding a space station or enemy ship), but a massive debuff when on the ground.

Know where you spend most of your fighting time? Yeah, on solid ground.

Even if this perk appears on a gold-tier gun, with two other solid effects, it’s still worth ditching the next time you stumble across a vendor.

Don’t forget, you can mod legendary items to improve their usefulness further. As you progress throughout the game, you’ll want to invest in your crafting skills, as well as the Special Projects skill, which unlocks even more powerful mods.

Starfield gives you a literal universe to explore

Hopefully, increasing the chance you get legendary weapons will improve your Starfield experience. Many of the other staff here have also been playing, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Being able to farm some higher-quality weapons and armor early on will make the rest of the tasks easier. We can’t do anything about making the ship-to-ship combat easier yet, but be sure we’ll have a guide if we discover anything.

Starfield: Standard Edition - Xbox Series X

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Starfield is the latest role-playing game from Bethesda Game Studios and the first new universe from the company in 25 years. Set in 2330, explore the Solar System and beyond in an epic adventure to figure out exactly what the game's mysterious artifacts are for.

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01/25/2024 09:10 am GMT

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The post This simple trick helps you farm Starfield legendary weapons appeared first on KnowTechie.

Even within the past decade, it’s not hard to find examples where people staked their name to an idea only to be proven immensely (and hilariously) wrong.

Remember Google Glass? Or when laptops came with 3D screens? 

Still, some predictions are so audacious you can’t help but take notice. A good example of this landed in my inbox just a few hours ago.

Dr. Ian Pearson, who spent almost 15 years working as the in-house futurologist for UK telco giant BT, claims that smartphones are an endangered species. 

The prediction — courtesy of UK second-hand tech reseller, Back Market — claims that by 2025, the pace of new smartphone releases will slow to a trickle. By 2030, mixed-reality devices will start to replace phones. 

And the wildest part? By 2040, Apple will “become jewelry merchants as advancements in wearable tech force mobile phones into extinction.” 

The future of mobile

Back to Dr. Ian Pearson. Let me be clear — I mean no disrespect to him. He’s a smart cookie. He’s a Ph.D. with degrees in Maths and Physics, according to his bio. I’m not.

In fact, I dropped out of my Master’s program after two weeks — although that likely had something to do with the fact that working a full-time job and while also studying full-time is really fucking hard. 

Pearson has over 1,900 inventions, including the active contact lens and, purportedly, text messaging. 

Obviously, the last bit deserves scrutiny. In 1991, Pearson published a document that described how to send text messages through landline phones.

In reality, the telecoms industry started work on SMS messaging in 1982 — almost one decade earlier. Pearson’s work relates to a use-case that never took off, and for obvious reasons.

Who wants to send a text from a communal device where you have no privacy? What’s the point of an SMS service that doesn’t work outside your home? 

Moreover, what even is an SMS? When you take away the complexity, it’s just a bunch of letters and numbers sent through a network and displayed on a computer. Like the kind sent by BNN engineer Ray Tomlinson in 1971.

SMS is on the way out

From Apple’s iMessage to Google’s RCS standard, traditional SMS communication is slowly being phased out.

Samsung adopts Google Messages as go-to message app

Pearson is smart. He’s accomplished. Even though his SMS work missed the mark, he obviously grasped the role technology (and networks) would play in our lives. While that seems obvious now, it wasn’t in 1991.

And yet, I think he’s missed the mark here. 

Three swings, two (and a bit) misses

Let’s go through the predictions one-by-one. First, he claims smartphone manufacturers will drastically slow the release of new devices by 2025. 

He’s right here, but not for the reasons he presents. Companies will make fewer models going forward, but not because we’re on the cusp of a mixed-reality future. It’s because of simple market fundamentals. 

Two things you need to understand. First, people are waiting longer and longer to upgrade their phones. In 2019, the typical iPhone upgrade cycle was estimated to be around four years.

Android devices have a shorter lifespan, albeit one that has improved over the years. This is, in part, due to better access to software upgrades and a growing consumer preference for mid-to-high-tier devices. 

That last bit is really important. People are spending more on their phones, and so, they expect them to last longer.

According to one survey commissioned by the UK government, under 20 percent of Brits spent less than £300 (roughly $360) on their mobile devices. 

That figure is likely higher in the US, where Samsung and Apple reign supreme, and where brands like Xiaomi and Oppo are absent. 

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: if sales are down, then it logically follows that smartphone companies will also slow down making new devices. 

Similarly, if people are spending more on high-end phones, it makes sense for manufacturers to focus on these devices.

Companies can’t win by spraying-and-praying. They need a big, splashy release once or twice a year. 

A mixed-reality, wearable future

I’m grouping the next two predictions together as one. As a reminder, Pearson believes that the smartphone industry will switch to wearable mixed-reality devices by 2030, and Apple will be a jewelry company by 2040. 

To be sure, wearable and mixed-reality technology will be a major facet of the technology landscape in the future. But screens are still good for… well… everything. Typing. Viewing media. You get the idea. 

That same UK Government-commissioned study mentioned earlier lists screen size as the primary driver behind a purchase.

This isn’t particularly surprising. The first iPhone had a dinky 3.5-inch screen. The latest iPhone 14 Pro Max has a 6.69-inch display. Clearly, the biggest the screen, the better.

But it’s more than size. The newest phones have incredible displays. They’re rich, bright, and boast incredible color fidelity. Or, put it another way: colors look like they should.

While this might change in the coming years, current mixed-reality headsets can’t deliver a comparable experience.

If you’ve ever used an AR headset — like Microsoft Hololens or a Google Glass wearable — you’ll know what I mean. Things just look… off. 

Usability and privacy

Two more points: Wearable devices don’t have keyboards. That means you’ll have to voice dictate everything.

Ask yourself: Would you be comfortable reading a private work email to everyone on the train? Do you think your fellow commuters want to hear your “it’s not you, it’s me” text message to your soon-to-be ex-partner? 

Also, they creep people out. We tolerate smartphones because you can put them away. The same isn’t quite as true with a face-worn headset. 

Sure, you could fold your Google Glass into its case, but most of the time, it lived on the wearer’s face.

Every time they bought a coffee, or had a conversation with a colleague around the water cooler, a camera was pointed at the other person’s face. It’s intrusive in a way normal smartphones simply aren’t. 

And so, I don’t see mixed-reality wearables achieving the same level of societal acceptance as smartphones. They’re just… weird. And I don’t see that changing. Ever.

As for Apple: sure, I’ll concede it’s a luxury goods company. But it’s different to, say, Gucci or Louis Vitton. 

Apple sells devices that are attainable to most people in developed countries. The iPhone SE, the entry-level iPad, and the Mac mini are all great examples. The idea that it’ll become a “jewelry merchant” is just, frankly, absurd.

Apple doesn’t shy away from costly products

If you deck it out completely, Apple’s latest MacPro Pro boasts a staggering price tag.

Here’s how much it costs to fully deck-out a new MacBook Pro

More importantly: usability and productivity matter to Apple. It doesn’t make toys or status symbols. It’s a technology company, and some of its biggest customers are large enterprises, where productivity matters.

How the sausage gets made

Look, I’ve worked in tech media for almost a decade. I’m intimately familiar with these types of pitches. 

A company will sponsor a survey (which is usually so flawed that it’s practically worthless) or hire a spokesperson to say something provocative. Then they’ll blast the results to a massive media email list. 

The goal is invariably to generate buzz — or, at the very least, backlinks — for the company sponsoring the research. 

If that sounds lazy and opportunistic, that’s because it often is.

When I worked at The Next Web, I received an email from a payday loan company that talked about the wasteful spending habits of millennials. “A daily post-commute Starbucks? Tut tut.”

That company, I note, loaned money (often to the poorest and least able to repay) at interest rates of 1,575 percent. That isn’t a typo. Almost 1,600 percent. 

The lack of self-awareness was mind-boggling. Naturally, I told the PR flack to find a job with a company that isn’t so transparently evil. I hear Monsanto is hiring.

Journalists — overworked and under pressure — often repeat the content of these emails without actually offering any real scrutiny to the pitch.

If you’ve seen half your colleagues laid off, and you’re under strict orders to produce five pieces of content each day, you ain’t going to be too choosy. Write, publish, repeat. 

Bullshit baffles brains

If I sound cynical, it’s because I am. I’m depressed about the declining standards in the media.

I read my local newspaper and see articles that are essentially re-written Reddit threads or thinly-veiled advertisements. 

“Mango shoppers ‘obsessed’ with ‘perfect’ £50 heels,” reads one post. Translation? A woman on TikTok likes a pair of shoes. Hold the fucking front page. 

“’Ignorant’ woman slammed for calling boyfriend’s stir fry ‘lonely man food.” screams another. This was a retelling of a thread on the CasualUK subreddit. A Pulitzer awaits the author of this piece.

I beg you, dear reader. If you take anything from this article, let it be this one point:

If you see a publication report on a survey that’s sponsored by a company, click through. Look at the data and methodology and see if it stands up. 

If you see an audacious prediction, like the one above, don’t get too wrapped up in it. Actually, you know, think about it. Because odds are high that it’ll be total fucking bullshit.

Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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The post Futurist says smartphones will be extinct by 2040. We’re calling B.S. appeared first on KnowTechie.

Just think about the humble eggplant. Once a staple of Mediterranean cuisine, it now possesses a somewhat anatomical (and sordid) definition. 

And so, it’s all too easy for younger Internet users to find themselves exposed to adult material — whether intentional or totally accidental.

Search for the wrong vegetable, or research the sinking of the Titanic, and suddenly you’re confronted with more flesh than you’d find at a Chinese wet market. 

And so, Google is taking action. In an announcement coinciding with Safer Internet Day, the search giant said it intends to blur explicit imagery in search results by default. This feature will go live in “the coming months.”

Rather than obfuscate images based on the keywords that accompany them, Google said it will use its AI prowess to identify exposed human flesh.

Although this is likely to produce its fair share of false positives and negatives, it will likely prove the most effective approach, given the number of euphemisms for naughty stuff. 

Crucially, this feature is separate from Google’s SafeSearch. Blurred images will appear even if you’ve deactivated Google’s equivalent of the V-Chip.

Again, the company wants to use this feature to prevent accidental exposure, which can happen when a child uses the computer of an older sibling or parent. 

Google will, however, allow users to deactivate the blur feature should they wish by tweaking their SafeSearch settings.

Coinciding with today’s news, Google also announced a new curated playlist of internet safety-related content for its YouTube Kids platform.

A site that, ironically, has faced its own issues with inappropriate content.

Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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The post Google will begin blurring explicit images in search by default appeared first on KnowTechie.

The Power Mac G4 and G5, and the earliest Intel Mac Pro machines, all offered the winning combination of performance and upgradability. Designers, game developers, and musicians lapped them up.

But things went awry a few years into the Tim Cook-era of Apple, with the poorly-designed “trashcan” Mac Pro, which sacrificed the all-important quality of upgradability on the altar of aesthetics.

Since then, Apple has struggled to regain its footing in this market, and now it’s weighing up its future options. 

Case in point: According to Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg reporter with a solid track record for predicting Apple’s future, the company is currently mulling the future of its new (and pricey) Mac Studio. 

Per Gurman, Apple is considering dropping the Mac Studio from its future lineup — or, arguably worse, allowing it to stagnate until the release of the M3 series chips, with few (if any) upgrades until then.

The limits of the Mac Studio

To be fair, either scenario doesn’t feel unlikely. The Mac Studio is a gorgeous-looking machine and delivers some genuinely impressive performance benchmarks.

But it lacks some of the most basic elements of a professional desktop workstation. Upgradability is the main one. 

The Mac Studio is basically a bigger, meaner Mac mini. Competent, sure, but still a Mac mini.

It lacks the upgradable memory, storage, and graphics normally found in a desktop workstation. This machine is only as powerful as its original configuration. 

And that’s an issue when you consider that the system requirements for high-end professional tasks — like deep learning, AI development, CAD/CAM, and video production — are only increasing.

As our capabilities grow in these fields, so are the demands on our hardware. The lack of upgradability gives these machines an artificially-short lifespan. 

A new Mac Pro

But more importantly: Apple is reportedly developing a new Mac Pro that remains (relatively) faithful to the design principles that made the originals so incredibly valuable for professional users. 

I say “relatively” for good reason. While the upcoming Mac Pro is expected to offer a degree of modularity, it’ll likely be limited to the storage*. That’s disappointing but also entirely unsurprising.

A significant factor behind the stellar performance of Apple Silicon is the fact that RAM is contained in the same package as the CPU.

By doing so, Apple reduces the latency (or, put simply, the time) it takes for a message to travel from the CPU to the RAM.

Similarly, Apple Silicon packages the GPU alongside the CPU. While this doesn’t allow for any type of long-term upgradability, it does deliver some key performance and power consumption benefits. 

While it’s tempting to imagine that the next Mac Pro will be a modernized version of the iconic Power Mac lineup, or the earliest Intel Mac Pro models, that’s not just realistic.

It would effectively require Apple to change its entire design philosophy for its homegrown ARM processors, ditching the attributes that made Apple Silicon so compelling in the first place.

Silver linings

It’s not all bad news. First, I wouldn’t discount the possibility of AMD or Nvidia providing GPU driver support for Apple Silicon, thereby allowing power-hungry users to deploy an eGPU. 

Hell, Intel could even sweep in, bringing an Apple Silicon-compatible flavor of its Arc discrete GPUs, in the process beating its biggest rivals to the finish line and enjoying exclusive control of a highly-lucrative market. 

No, the Mac Pro never sold well. But the people who bought it typically had deep pockets, and they were prepared to spend big on upgrades.

And the people who are likely to buy the next Mac Pro will almost certainly need a lot of GPU processing power. 

Another positive about the rumored Mac Pro

It’ll be physically bigger than the Mac Studio. Even if every square inch of its internals isn’t filled with components, this is undoubtedly a good thing for those who buy it.

The bigger the machine, the more effectively it can dissipate heat. 

Heat, as we all know, is kryptonite to performance. When a component reaches a certain temperature, it’ll throttle performance to cool down.

High temperatures, sustained over a period of time, have the potential to damage your hardware. 

That’s an especially pressing concern for machines like the Mac Studio (and likely also the upcoming Mac Pro), where all the core components sit on the same bit of PCB.

If your GPU fails, or your RAM dies a death, you’ve no option other than to throw away the entire computer.

Or find someone with strong micro-soldering skills and pay them a lot of money to fix your machine, often using components sourced from other defective computers.

A bright-ish future

While we can lament the passing of Apple’s once-upgradable hardware, and perhaps also the impending departure of the Mac Studio, we can at least take comfort in knowing that the upcoming Mac Pro will be a more powerful, more upgradable piece of hardware.

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The post The Mac Studio never really made sense appeared first on KnowTechie.

UPDATE 3/23/2023: Google Bard is now available for public testing. Google launched it on March 21.

A lingering scent of desperation descended upon the tech hub of Mountain View, California on Monday. Alphabet (formerly Google) announced it intended to add a new generative AI feature to its core search product.

Like ChatGPT, this product, Bard produces written responses to user-submitted questions. This data is synthesized from the vast quantities of human-made content on the Internet.

Conceptually, it breaks little new ground.

What is Google’s Bard AI, and how does it work?

Bard AI is a new conversational chatbot from Google that turns search into a more intuitive conversational experience.

What is Google Bard, and how does it work?

The key difference between Bard and ChatGPT is the algorithm that generates the results, with the latter using OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, whereas the former uses Google’s LaMDA technology.

Following a short closed beta, Google intends to release Bard as a standalone product for the general public in the coming weeks and eventually integrate elements of the tool into the main search engine. 

Catching up

Despite the usual Silicon Valley pomp and confidence, it’s clear that Alphabet is operating from a place of sheer panic.

ChatGPT — its capabilities and virality — took the company by surprise. A second body blow followed when Microsoft agreed to invest $10bn into the AI’s developer, OpenAI. 

Why did this terrify Alphabet? Because it’s hugely dependent on search. It was responsible for over half of the company’s revenue in the quarter ending December 31, 2022.

The search product is, in essence, an information retrieval product. People go to Google because they want to find something or learn something. 

ChatGPT arguably offers a better way to do that, and it was created by a company with (at the end of 2022) fewer than 400 employees.

OpenAI wasn’t even a company until recently. It began life as a non-profit.

OpenAI changed models after realizing the following:

1. Developing AI is expensive
2. AI is hugely computationally expensive to run
3. Investors, by their very nature, expect to receive a profit. 

It’s a David and Goliath tale, and Alphabet’s panic only amplified after Microsoft dumped $10bn into the company.

It’s not just about the money. Microsoft has a bigger and more capable cloud computing offering than Google.

They’ve invested heavily into the hardware necessary to run large-scale computationally-expensive AI applications. And so, OpenAI has a clear path to popularizing its current and future AI tools. 

For the sake of transparency, I haven’t used Bard yet. But I have spent most of my decade working in technology journalism.

I’m intimately familiar with the tell-tale signs of a company in a state of panic. One desperately trying to catch up with a rival. Existential fear has a distinctive smell, and Alphabet reeks of it. 

Problems Afoot 

I’m pretty skeptical about Bard’s future chances. Last night, I sat at my computer and came up with a list of why Google is unlikely to reverse the tides now in motion.

For the sake of fairness, I also tried to come up with a list of reasons to be cheerful about Alphabet’s future. Naturally, one list was longer than the other. 

Why Google’s Bard could potentially fail

Google is preternaturally bad at commercializing new products. While its engineering prowess is second-to-none, the company quickly loses interest in the months following launch day.

And that’s why genuinely groundbreaking products — like Stadia, Android Things, and countless others — all suffered untimely deaths.

Incidentally, this is also why Alphabet is so vulnerable to ChatGPT. As its 2022 financials reveal, its primary sources of profit are Google’s core services.

Search, advertising, and YouTube. Its cloud business made a huge loss, much like it did the year before, and remains marginal compared to AWS and Microsoft’s Azure. 

Google’s search product has declined in quality in recent years. I’m not the only person to make that observation.

What’s to say that Bard won’t simply produce results based on content that, while effective from an SEO perspective, is otherwise low-quality and inaccurate? Garbage in, garbage out.

And then we get to the thorny issue of plagiarism. Bard will use content from third parties. Newspapers. Blogs. Media outlets. The issue of who owns an AI-generated derivative work is still unresolved. 

We can expect pushback from news organizations over this. Australia already requires Alphabet (and other large social media platforms) to compensate publishers for content that appears in timelines and search results.

We imagine they’ll be even more pissed off when they realize Google is creating unauthorized knock-offs of their articles. 

Bard will inevitably reduce the traffic sent to websites — particularly those centered around content. Google users won’t need to click through. Again, this will likely provoke some pushback from creators.

Big tech isn’t popular — either in the US or abroad.

It isn’t hard to imagine Congress — or, more likely, the European Commission — taking some tough punitive actions against Alphabet, especially if it’s seen to be hurting news and media organizations. 

Alphabet’s business is heavily centered around advertising. As Microsoft’s disastrous first forays into the chatbot space showed, AI algorithms can easily produce incorrect or offensive content.

Advertisers are heavily sensitive to “brand safety.” It’s why YouTube routinely demonetizes controversial content.

Finally, AI is hugely expensive. By one estimation, OpenAI pays $0.01 for every 30 words generated.

Scaling Bard to Alphabet’s global customer base will inevitably raise the company’s operating costs. Servers, GPUs, and power aren’t cheap.

Google almost certainly created Bard while in a fit of flight-or-fight panic. And so, these thorny issues were likely set aside.

A problem ignored is a problem deferred. Eventually, they’ll have to reconcile with these issues. 

Reasons to be optimistic 

Of course, Alphabet has a few tricks up its sleeve. Not many, sure, but they’re strong. 

• Google is still the leading search engine. While Alphabet has to catch up technologically, it doesn’t have to build a user base. That already exists. 
• Alphabet is one of the few companies that build AI hardware and software.
• This means two things: First, Alphabet can build purpose-built hardware designed for the workflows it intends to run. Microsoft has to compete with other vendors for Nvidia A100 cards.
• Finally, LaMDA is a really powerful bit of software. So powerful it convinced a Google Engineer it was sentient.
• Combine that with Google’s knowledge of the wider Internet — something built over two decades — and we have the potential for something amazing. 

In short, while it’s technically possible for Alphabet to deploy Bard at scale, doing so will inevitably ignite conflicts with content creators, newspaper owners, and regulators.

It poses a risk to its core advertising business. And it’s still of an unproven usefulness. 

Even ChatGPT — which is impressive — struggles with accuracy. It produces content that seems plausible but often isn’t. Auto-generated code that doesn’t work. Blog posts that are filled with factual errors.

While this may improve over time, it’s not something you can use commercially — at least, not without some serious human-powered editing. And I’m yet to learn how Bard will be any different. 

Race to second place 

At the time of writing (Tuesday, Feb 7), Microsoft is reportedly hours away from announcing the latest fruits of its collaboration with OpenAI.

Meanwhile, Chinese search giant Baidu is working on its own ChatGPT alternative called Ernie Bot. 

When Bard is unleashed to the public later this month (or, perhaps in March), it will enter an increasingly crowded market.

And while I don’t believe Google’s search dominance is threatened, it’s entirely possible that we could see a gust of momentum behind its biggest rival, Bing. 

With ChatGPT now behind a paywall, Bing could have a temporarily-unique selling point. People would have a reason — beyond Microsoft Rewards — to use it.

And that could be enough to start shifting consumer habits. In the long run, that’s probably a good thing. Monopolies are bad, especially when they’re centered around access to information. 

But perhaps more importantly, Google’s perception as an innovator is at risk.

Rather than being the company that makes cool products (even if it eventually kills them), it will now become the company playing catch-up.  

Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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The post Can Google Bard dethrone ChatGPT? appeared first on KnowTechie.

Anker is a sleeping giant in the audio world. While it lacks the brand force of Sennheiser and Sony, it nonetheless makes some incredible products at a competitive price point.

KnowTechie has covered Anker’s in-ear and over-ear headphones over the past few years. And now, it’s time we looked at a new category of audio gear from Anker: Sleeping earbuds.

Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

Quick Verdict

The Soundcore Sleep A10 won’t be for everyone. It isn’t cheap. It’s not a good pair of day-to-day headphones. And it takes some getting used to. At first, it won’t feel natural. You must persevere. Despite this, they’re worth considering if you’re looking for a tech-centric way to improve your sleep quality.

See at Soundcore

The Soundcore Sleep A10 are earbuds intended to be worn as you drift off to sleep. Think of them as an alarm clock, sleep monitor, and white noise machine in one package.

Anker isn’t a pioneer in this space. There are other brands with competing products, most notably Bose, arguably the most premium mass-market name in audio.

But the subject of today’s review, the Anker Soundcore Sleep A10, has a trick up its sleeve. It’s almost half the price of the equivalent Bose Sleepbuds II.

But is it any good? Read on to find out.

Verified

Staff Pick

Soundcore Sleep A10
The Soundcore Sleep A10 won’t be for everyone. It isn’t cheap but they’re priced at $180, which costs a fraction of of its competitors.

Rating

$180 at Soundcore

Form and fit

Like many people, I find in-ear headphones incredibly uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods of time.

The idea of wearing a pair to bed is, put mildly, not a particularly attractive prospect.

Fortunately, Anker did a good job with the Sleep A10’s ergonomics. The buds are small. Unfathomably so.

It’s about half the size of your pinky finger’s tip. Here they are next to a British five-pence coin, for scale.

For side-sleepers (like myself), that’s essential. You want to be as comfortable as possible. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Although the Soundcore Sleep A10 takes a bit of getting used to, you eventually become accustomed to it. After a few days of consistent usage, you stop noticing it’s even there.

Within its box, I found a generous selection of ear tips and wings designed to accommodate every conceivable variety of ear canals.

You’ll want to experiment. Finding the right fit is essential to the Anker Soundcore Sleep A10’s proper functioning.

The alarm functionality works best when the earbuds can assault both of your eardrums. And, as I mentioned, they’re incredibly small (and, thus, easily lost among the bedsheets).

Software, sound, and sleep

The Soundcore Sleep A10 lacks ANC (active noise canceling). That’s hardly a surprise, given the buds’ tiny size.

ANC is incredibly power-hungry. It requires dedicated circuitry and a constellation of microphones.

Instead, it uses four-point noise masking, which Anker claims can reduce background noise by up to 35db.

Soundcore A10 Sleep

Why we like it

• Designed for comfortable sleep
• Fits well with a variety of silicone tips and wings
• Comes with a charging case and a USB-C cable
• Case holds enough charge for seven uses
• Earbuds last 6 hours in Music mode and 10 hours in sleep mode at 50% volume
• Audio quality is good, especially for sleep.

See at Soundcore

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I’m a deep sleeper, and my bedroom doesn’t face the road, so I didn’t really benefit from this. Others, however, might.

On the battery life front, Anker promises around 10 hours of continuous nighttime usage. In our testing, this was about right.

Charging came via the included hockey puck-shaped case, which felt disproportionately large when compared to the earbuds themselves or, indeed, the cases of other conventional wireless earbuds.

Although the Soundcore Sleep A10 can perform like traditional wireless earbuds, it does grant the wearer access to the Soundcore Sleep Music Library.

What to know about the Sleep Music Library

This Music Library contains a bevy of bedtime-friendly soundscapes designed to send you into a restful state.

You can configure this mode to activate automatically when you fall asleep, which is a nice touch.

In practice, this means you can listen to your favorite podcast, and as you begin drifting off, you won’t lose your place or be startled by an unexpected ad for the latest iHeartRadio exclusive.

The sound quality was surprisingly excellent, even given the Soundcore Sleep A10’s tiny frame and lack of ANC.

We also appreciated the generous size of the Soundcore Sleep Music Library, as well as the ability to upload your own sleepytime audio to the device.

It doesn’t compare to other high-end audio gear or Anker’s latest mid-range over-ear cans, but it’s more than capable of delivering an acceptable nighttime listening experience.

Sleep tracking and an alarm clock that is sure to wake you up

The results from the earbuds’ sleep-tracking functionality largely mirrored that of my Apple Watch SE. It gives you an overview of your time spent asleep, divided into periods of deep and light sleep.

Arguably its standout feature is the alarm clock. Put simply, this works. It will wake you up. And, best of all, it won’t disturb anyone who shares your bed or bedroom.

This could be a game-changer for college students with roommates or couples with different shift patterns.

Alternatives to consider

Sleeping earbuds are a vanishingly small category within the wider audio space. As such, there aren’t too many competitors.

We mentioned Bose’s Sleepbuds II, which retails at $250. Similarly, there are the lesser-known QuietOn 3 earbuds, which cost $269 new. Use promo code KnowTechie for 10% off.

The Soundcore Sleep A10, priced at $180, costs a fraction of those products. More details below.

Bose Sleepbuds II

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Amazon

Bose

Who are these good for?

• Anyone in need of a reliable sleep aid
• Frequent travelers who need a compact, portable solution for noise-masking
• People who are sensitive to sound and need customizable settings for volume and tone
• Tech-savvy individuals who are willing to invest in a high-quality, comfortable sleep solution

Overall, the Bose Sleepbuds II is a good alternative for anyone looking to upgrade their sleep game. While they may cost a bit more than other options on the market, they offer top-notch comfort, convenience, and sound quality that make them well worth the investment.

QuietOn3

QuietOn

Zquiet

Who are these good for?

• Anyone who lives in a noisy environment and has difficulty sleeping due to external sounds
• Folks who are sensitive to small noises and find them disruptive while trying to sleep
• City-dwellers, light sleepers, or anyone with loud neighbors

The QuietOn 3.1 sleep earbuds are a solid choice for anyone looking to block out external noise and get a better night’s sleep. However, they’re not for everyone, as some may find it hard to get a comfortable fit, and then those who prefer to listen to music or white noise.

Final Verdict

The Soundcore Sleep A10 won’t be for everyone. It isn’t cheap. It’s not a good pair of day-to-day headphones. And it takes some getting used to.

At first, it won’t feel natural. You must persevere. Despite that, there’s a lot to appreciate here.

From an engineering perspective, they’re impressive. You can’t help but admire their tiny frame. The alarm functionality is excellent. As mentioned, it will wake you up.

Similarly, the earbuds’ ability to switch audio output when you fall asleep is another understated gem within the Soundcore Sleep A10.

Soundcore A10 Sleep

Why we like it

• Designed for comfortable sleep
• Fits well with a variety of silicone tips and wings
• Comes with a charging case and a USB-C cable
• Case holds enough charge for seven uses
• Earbuds last 6 hours in Music mode and 10 hours in sleep mode at 50% volume
• Audio quality is good, especially for sleep.

See at Soundcore

Check Best Price

Where to find them

They are available directly from the company and from Amazon or Best Buy.

While they’re not exactly something you’d buy on impulse, they’re worth considering if you’re looking for a tech-centric way to improve your sleep quality.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Review: Eight Sleep Pod 3 Mattress – deep sleep at any cost
• Review: EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid wireless gaming earbuds
• Review: HHOGene GPods light earbuds
• Review: AGM H5 Pro smartphone – a rugged smartphone, but is it worth buying?
• HP announces new Poly Voyager Free 60 Series earbuds for work

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s but one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

The post Review: Anker Soundcore Sleep A10 earbuds appeared first on KnowTechie.

Earlier this morning, the company deleted both the tweets announcing the change and the official blog post that explained the policy in further detail.

In a rare show of contrition, Elon Musk tweeted: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

The Ban: Explained

As explained last night, the ban prohibited Twitter users from posting links to their profiles on certain alternative social networking sites.

These included Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Donald Trump’s Twitter clone, Truth Social.

The ban also prohibited attempts to circumvent these restrictions by using third-party link aggregators like Linktree, or by otherwise obfuscating the URL through technical or non-technical means.

Violators would face temporary bans and tweet deletions. Twitter also warned that repeat offenders would receive longer (or permanent) bans.

During its few hours, this policy provoked a fiery response from users, who argued it undercut Elon Musk’s purported commitment to free speech.

On a more practical level, this policy would also likely fall afoul of the European Commission’s anti-gatekeeper rules, which are set to be introduced next year as part of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Under the DMA’s rules, companies deemed to be ‘gatekeepers’ could face fines of up to 20 percent of their revenue if they use their incumbent status to disadvantage competitors.

We note that many platforms Twitter listed in the original third-party social media ban were direct (albeit up-and-coming) competitors. Examples include Post, Mastodon, and Tribel.

A New CEO?

Coinciding with this turmoil, Musk issued a (totally non-scientific) Twitter poll that asked if he should step down as “Chief Twit.”

At the time of writing, the yes camp holds a commanding lead with 57.5 percent of the vote.

Musk said he would honor the result of the poll, although followed with a warning: “be careful what you wish for, as you might get it.”

Musk also lamented that he believes that “there is no successor” and “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

KnowTechie notes that since acquiring the company in late October, Twitter has suffered an exodus of advertisers.

The company remains deeply reliant on advertising revenue, while subscriptions remain a small proportion of its annual income.

Twitter may have been on a downward trajectory, but Musk’s antics — particularly surrounding the failed first launch of Twitter Blue — have likely only accelerated that trend.

If nothing else, the first incarnation of Twitter Blue lasted longer than his link prohibition to third-party social networking sites.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Twitter shutting down Substack-like Revue platform
• Twitter reportedly looking into forced location tracking
• Elon Musk says Twitter is phasing out legacy verified checkmarks
• Twitter rolls out gold checkmarks for verified business accounts

The post Twitter lifts ban on third-party social links appeared first on KnowTechie.

The list includes well-known names like Facebook and Instagram and platforms that directly compete with Twitter, including Post, Tribel, and Mastodon.

Truth Social, the microblogging site owned by former US president Donald Trump, is also on the blocklist.

So is Nostr, a decentralized microblogging site that’s (ironically) backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Dorsey, we note, still owns about $1bn of Twitter equity.

The Blocklist

Curiously, several big-name social networking sites did not feature on the list.

TikTok was seemingly spared. So are Gab and Parler, Truth Social’s biggest rivals in the alt-tech space.

Seeing the list of banned websites lengthen in the coming days and weeks wouldn’t surprise me.

In practice, Twitter will no longer allow people to share links to their profiles on other platforms.

So, posting your Facebook or Instagram profile is now strictly verboten.

You are, however, allowed to cross-post content from these platforms.

Skirting The Rules

Twitter has cracked down on third-party link aggregators to stop users from circumventing these new rules. These include Linktree and lnk.bio.

The updated rulebook also prohibits attempts to circumvent the ban on third-party social linking “through technical or non-technical means.”

Twitter cited two examples: using a URL cloaking service or spelling the punctuation in a URL (for instance, writing “facebook.com” as “facebook dot com”).

First-time offenders will receive a temporary suspension and must delete the tweet that violated Twitter’s rules.

Those who break Twitter’s link ban will receive lengthier suspensions — or potentially have their accounts banned permanently.

Free Speech and Twitter

Twitter is, as mentioned before, Elon Musk’s personal fiefdom. He owns almost all of the company’s equity. He can do whatever he wants.

But that doesn’t mean people (or, in the case of Twiter Blue’s paid-for verification, advertisers) have to like it.

At the very least, Musk’s self-stated free speech credentials are in doubt. Hypocrisy is never a good look. It’s (as the kids say) bad optics.

If one takes a critical view, Musk’s belief in free speech extends as far as Twitter’s user numbers.

At worst, this move will further alienate Twitter’s most active users.

For those concerned about Twitter’s direction, this crackdown on third-party social websites is emblematic of Twitter’s unpredictable and often self-interested direction.

And it will only incentivize them further to look for alternatives.

In late October, Elon Musk tweeted: “The bird is freed.” He now owned Twitter.

As his own personal fiefdom, the social networking platform would be a bastion of free speech unlike any other.

Two months later, how’s that going? Not great.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Twitter shutting down Substack-like Revue platform
• Meta brings Twitter-like Notes feature to Instagram
• Twitter reportedly looking into forced location tracking
• Elon Musk says Twitter is phasing out legacy verified checkmarks

The post Twitter bans links to third-party social networks appeared first on KnowTechie.

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, popular single-board computers have been a scarce commodity.

If you visited the storefront of any approved reseller, you’d see the same three words: “Out of stock.” 

But now, as the semiconductor shortage shows signs of easing, that’s about to change.

These brightening conditions have allowed the release of over 100,000 Raspberry Pi computers for single-unit sales. 

According to Raspberry Pi founder Ebon Upton, these units are split across the company’s most popular machines.

These include the “Zero W, 3A+ and the 2GB and 4GB variants of Raspberry Pi 4.” 

This is welcome news for hobbyists, who previously were forced to pay the extreme markups demanded by Raspberry Pi scalpers.

In some cases, the company’s most powerful machines were sold for 400 percent above retail. 

Why was it so hard to buy a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi was especially affected by the semiconductor crunch.

As a relatively small customer (compared to the likes of Samsung or Apple), it lacked the power and influence to demand priority from manufacturers. 

Complicating matters further, its chipsets use older semiconductor manufacturing processes.

The BCM2711 chipset that powers the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B uses a 28nm node. That’s the same as many industrial and automotive chipsets. 

In early 2021, the semiconductor industry was devastated by two freak incidents: the first was a fire at a Japanese semiconductor fab owned by Renesas, which primarily catered to industrial and automotive customers. 

The other was a cold snap in Texas, which resulted in the collapse of the state’s power grid. As a result, Samsung and NXP were forced to stop manufacturing chipsets. 

Semiconductor manufacturing isn’t like a faucet. You can’t just turn it on and off. It takes time — a lot of time — to restart production.

And this only exacerbated the woes faced by Raspberry Pi, which faced increased competition for precious manufacturing time. 

Industrial and automotive users either switched foundries, often to TSMC, which makes the Pi’s BCM2711 processor, or redesigned their chips to use the same 28nm node as the Raspberry Pi. You see where this is going.

There’s also the demand element. Raspberry Pi computers are great educational tools, but they’re also good for building embedded devices.

At the start of the pandemic, these computers were increasingly found in medical equipment and other physical hardware products. 

And so, individual users were forced to wait in an ever-lengthening line. 

Price hikes

It’s not all good news. Faced with higher production costs, Raspberry Pi is hiking the price of some key devices.

The cheapest Raspberry Pi Zero machine will jump from $5 to $10, whereas the more powerful Raspberry Pi Zero W now costs $15, up from $10. 

Writing on the official Raspberry Pi blog, Upton said this was a necessary step, due to the low margins of the computers.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Oceanic+ turns the Apple Watch Ultra into a dive computer
• The iPhone 15 Pro Max could get USB 3.2 – here’s why that matters
• What is OLED burn-in and how can you avoid it?
• Is it okay to keep my computer near the window?

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

The post Raspberry Pi devices resurface as semiconductor shortage eases appeared first on KnowTechie.

Twitter Blue confers a few benefits. Subscribers see fewer ads, can edit Tweets, and gain a (once highly-coveted) verification tick next to their name.

The package costs $8 per month or $11 for those using iOS’ in-app payment system.

The price difference for those paying directly with Apple Pay accounts for the 30 percent ‘tax’ that Apple charges on all digital goods. 

The death and rebirth of Twitter Blue 

Twitter Blue (under Elon Musk) first debuted in November, only to be suspended less than 48 hours after users took advantage of the paid-for verification tool to impersonate major brands. 

In one case, a Twitter Blue subscriber changed their profile to mimic pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and announced plans to slash the price of insulin to zero.

Because the account had a verified checkmark, it was almost indistinguishable from the real corporate mouthpiece. Eli Lilly’s stock price tumbled as a result.

One fake, masquerading as McDonald’s, falsely announced the fast food chain routinely sold expired meat. 

Another, this time pretending to be defense giant Lockheed Martin, said it would suspend sales of military hardware to countries with a checkered human rights record.

These hoaxes — although profoundly funny — caused advertisers to suspend their Twitter ad buys. And that’s a problem because Twitter relies heavily on advertising to keep the lights on.

Even with the push towards a subscription model, advertising accounts for the bulk of Twitter’s revenue.

This time around, Twitter plans to closely scrutinize Twitter Blue accounts to mitigate the risk of impersonation. These measures include limiting verification to those accounts that have been active for at least 90 days.

Whether it will be successful — particularly given its drastically diminished headcount — remains to be seen. 

Existing verified accounts could change

Musk has expressed a wish to see existing verified accounts pay for Twitter Blue to maintain their status. So far, that hasn’t happened. 

But it’s not unthinkable. For some (but not all) people with a pre-Musk checkmark, Twitter now says their accounts are a “legacy verified account” that “may or not be notable.” 

Twitter is likely to add additional checkmark styles in the coming weeks. These will distinguish between genuinely noteworthy pages and those that simply paid for verification. 

As some leaks suggest, pages belonging to businesses will receive a gold checkmark, while those associated with government bodies will have a grey checkmark. 

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Twitter will soon tell you if your account is shadowbanned
• Oversight Board finds Meta puts business over people
• Elon Musk puts an end to Twitter’s COVID misinformation policy
• A Tesla Model 3 redesign is in the works

The post Twitter Blue relaunches with higher price for iOS users appeared first on KnowTechie.